KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Monday witnessed a bullish trend with brisk trading activity on the back of aggressive buying by local and foreign investors coupled with institutional support.

BRIndex100 gained 106.8 points or 2.09 percent to close at 5,150.58 points. BRIndex100 hit intraday high of 5,238.22 and intraday low of 5,150.58 points. Volumes stood at 1,317.266 million shares. BRIndex30 increased by 680.9 points or 2.56 percent to close at 27,291.73 points with a turnover of 999.870 million shares.

The KSE-100 Index surged by 770.05 points or 1.63 percent and closed at 47,896.34 points. Trading activity remained extremely high as daily volumes on the ready counter crossed one billion mark to 1,412.260 million shares as compared to 959.886 million shares traded last Friday.

Foreign investors also remained net buyers of shares worth $2.768 million. The market capitalization increased by Rs 136 billion to Rs 8.267 trillion. Out of total 430 active scrips, 351 closed in positive and only 65 in negative while the value of 14 stocks remained unchanged.

WorldCall Telecom was the volume leader with 480.613 million shares and gained Rs 0.67 to close at Rs 3.67 followed by Byco Petroleum that inched up by Rs 0.49 to close at Rs 11.25 with 94.526 million shares. Wyeth Pak and Rafhan Maize were the top gainers increasing by Rs 159.78 and Rs 100.00 respectively to close at Rs 2290.25 and Rs 9400.00 while Unilever Foods and Sanofi-Aventis were the top losers declining by Rs 490.00 and Rs 16.49 respectively to close at Rs 15500.00 and Rs 853.50.

BR Automobile Assembler Index increased by 179.27 points or 1.93 percent to close at 9,478.70 points with total turnover of 14.399 million shares. BR Cement Index surged by 278.88 points or 3.72 percent to close at 7,770.91 points with 97.227 million shares.

BR Commercial Banks Index gained 100.44 points or 1.07 percent to close at 9,450.58 points with 103.386 million shares.

BR Power Generation and Distribution Index inched up by 84.06 points or 1.52 percent to close at 5,632.51 points with 48.251 million shares. BR Oil and Gas Index added 90.41 points or 2.23 percent to close at 4,137.39 points with 57.845 million shares. BR Tech. & Comm. Index closed at 4,372.45 points, up 70.39 points or 1.64 percent with 614.244 million shares. An analyst at Arif Habib Limited said that the market crossed the resistance level of 47,300 points comfortably by adding a total of 853 points during the session and maintained the bullish trend to end the session plus 770 points. Factors contributing to the bullish sentiment at the bourse include strong economic numbers from remittances to tax collection and real GDP growth that is anticipated to go north of 4.5 percent. Investors have also been expecting positive measures in the upcoming budget, due to be announced June 11th that is likely to keep the sentiment in an upbeat mood. Cement sector performed well on the back of increase in cement price/bag in north region. Among scrips, WTL led the table with 480 million shares, followed by BYCO (94.2 million shares) and SILK (71.5 million shares).

Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (up 98 points), E&P (up 96 points), O&GMCs (up 53 points), Fertilizer (up 39 points) and Autos (up 22 points).

Stocks that contributed positively to the index include DGKC (up 45 points), LUCK (up 45 points), PSO (up 41 points), HBL (up 32 points) and OGDC (up 31 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include FFC (down 9 points), NBP (down 5 points), KEL (down 4 points), SHFA (down 2 points) and GLAXO (down 2 points).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021